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Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "David Knowles reports at Bloomberg that former Hewlett-Packard CEO and potential 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina called out Apple CEO Tim Cook as a hypocrite for criticizing Indiana and Arkansas over their Religious Freedom Restoration Acts while at the same time doing business in countries where gay rights are non-existent. "When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he's in, including China and Saudi Arabia," Fiorina said. "But I don't hear him being upset about that."
In similar criticism of Hillary Clinton on the Fox News program Hannity, Fiorina argued that Clinton's advocacy on behalf of women was tarnished by donations made to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments where women's rights are not on par with those in America. ""I must say as a woman, I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton travels the Silicon Valley, a place where I worked for a long time, and lectures Silicon Valley companies on women's rights in technology, and yet sees nothing wrong with taking money from the Algerian government, which really denies women the most basic human rights. This is called, Sean, hypocrisy." While Hillary Clinton hasn't directly addressed Fiorina's criticisms, her husband has. "You've got to decide, when you do this work, whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country," former president Bill Clinton said in March. "And I believe we have done a lot more good than harm. And I believe this is a good thing.""
In similar criticism of Hillary Clinton on the Fox News program Hannity, Fiorina argued that Clinton's advocacy on behalf of women was tarnished by donations made to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments where women's rights are not on par with those in America. ""I must say as a woman, I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton travels the Silicon Valley, a place where I worked for a long time, and lectures Silicon Valley companies on women's rights in technology, and yet sees nothing wrong with taking money from the Algerian government, which really denies women the most basic human rights. This is called, Sean, hypocrisy." While Hillary Clinton hasn't directly addressed Fiorina's criticisms, her husband has. "You've got to decide, when you do this work, whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country," former president Bill Clinton said in March. "And I believe we have done a lot more good than harm. And I believe this is a good thing.""
Carly Fiorina called out Apple CEO Tim Cook as a hypocrite for criticizing Indiana and Arkansas over their Religious Freedom Restoration Acts while at the same time doing business in countries where gay rights are non-existent.
First off, since Fiorina has run a large multinational, she know damn well that the CEO's personal morality on an issue matters very little regarding where the company does businesses. This is just pandering to conservatives by someone who hopes to run for office. Did HP stop doing business in China because of Fiorina's personal sense of morality? Didn't think so.
Last time I checked, Tim Cook was a US citizen so it hardly seems inappropriate to hold your own country to a higher standard than places where you don't actually get a vote. Furthermore it's a little hard to criticize a foreign country for something that your own country is doing. Fix your home first and then you can hold the moral high ground. These "religious freedom" laws are nothing more than attempts to codify bigotry and circumvent parts of the constitution.
I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton travels the Silicon Valley, a place where I worked for a long time, and lectures Silicon Valley companies on women's rights in technology, and yet sees nothing wrong with taking money from the Algerian government, which really denies women the most basic human rights.
Aaaannnd now we get to what is really going on. Any republican presidential hopeful for the 2016 election is going to engage in a huge amount of Hillary bashing. Anyone who has actually dealt with foreign countries would (or should) know that progress in human rights sometimes comes in slow, painful, incremental steps. Someone who has been Secretary of State would know this well. The US had slavery and jim crow laws and huge civil rights abuses for most of its history. Problems we are still dealing with today. Anyone who thinks the US is in a position to lecture on human rights hasn't read a history book lately. Fiorina knows or ought to know this so she's just pandering to idiots who lack the ability to grasp nuance. Sad thing is that it works.
While I am not entirely sure about how discriminatory the Indiana law is
I think it is clearly an attempt to allow people to act in bigoted ways against unprotected minority groups under the aegis of protecting their "religious" rights. It allows religious people to impose their religious morals on others while limiting the government's ability to protect others from those impositions. Personally I think it is a gross violation of separation of church and state cleverly disguised to appear to support that very same principle. It seems most targeted at LGBT individuals but I have little doubt it will be used against atheists and probably various non-protected minorities as well.
Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of the bill. Frankly there is very little I've seen to suggest it is anything other than an attempt by religious conservatives to codify their right to discriminate against others into law.
First, let me be clear that I'm not disputing that she's merely strewing birdseed for the conservative election pigeons. Of COURSE she is doing that. However, your response is full of logical inconsistencies:
Did you have the same response when he was righteously sermonizing on how the people of Indiana and Arkansas choose to run their lives? It seems that his personal morality matters very MUCH on where Apple will choose to do business (and fwiw, the predictable chain of other "conscientious" attention-whores who likewise lined up to promptly jump on the bandwagon criticizing those states).
I don't recall her leaping to the public pulpit to lecture anyone on their choices, either?
Yet in the US social progress needs to come IMMEDIATELY, as soon as someone stamps their precious little foot?
As opposed to deeply tendentious people who cheerfully support (rationalizing where necessary) a presidential candidate who has - illegally - received campaign donations from foreign governments despite their heinous civil rights records. Hey, the ends justify the means, right?
-Styopa
jcr has a point. If Indiana is as homophobic as SA, then how many have been killed?
This whole Indiana thing has been noting but bullying on the left's part. "Gay marriage" is nothing more than a ploy to force acceptance on people who have serious religious object to homosexual acts and supporting such acts. If this were not the case why is it that people who believed that a "we don't need a piece of paper to prove we're married." All of a sudden, that piece of paper is so important because homosexuals are the ones with traditional views of marriage.
I'm done with Democrats and the left. A bunch of hypocrites. And the right isn't much better.
I can see this both ways. On the one hand, Fiorina is right. Saudi Arabia, China, etc. have despicable human rights records and roundly deserve criticism and boycotts.
On the other hand, Apple is a US-based company and is much more likely to have influence in the US than elsewhere. We should recognize that we need to fight injustice everywhere, but just because we aren't able to effectively fight it in China that doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and ignore it in the US.
What Apple et. al. really should do is ensure that their employees in China are as well-treated on the job as American workers. Not to do that would be utterly hypocritical.
Why would those situations be equivalent?
Indiana is the low hanging fruit in this case: For US political purposes, politicians that cultivate 'pro-business' images either also cultivate 'values', or tend to work with those who do. Here, the legislature was hoping to throw the 'values' voters a bone by solving a mostly imaginary problem, ideally without any political cost to themselves(except a little extra antipathy from the liberals who weren't going to vote for them anyway).
That puts Apple(and the assorted other companies that have denounced the move, it's a bit of a list) in a fairly strong position: they can't necessarily stop Indiana from doing something; but they can make it clear that you can't burnish your social-conservative credentials without risking your pro-business credentials. It's a natural 'wedge' issue. If Apple and others say nothing, people who are basically interested in business get to pander to social conservatives for free. If they say something, that won't change the game for politicians whose primary support is social conservative; but it will make the ones who listen to the local chamber of commerce much jumpier about doing this sort of thing.
Without access to that particular political dynamic, their ability to influence a foreign market is a great deal weaker, if present at all.
perhaps he holds Indiana to higher standards than he expects from the most despotic countries on the planet?